As any good public domain project should be, Sherlock Holmes has seen itself caricatured, blasted and admonished on the big screen time and time again. Producers will rightly not rest until they have extracted every wrinkle of quality from the Arthur Conan Doyle classics. Where does that stop, though? Enola Holmes 2 is a distant sequel to the first feature and just as implausibly dull as that Millie Bobby Brown-starring piece. Her role and performance are not the problems, but the lack of direction situated at the heart of it and the consistency of its flubs and dullard moments of fourth-wall-breaking narration. A seemingly popular move for Netflix, though it is one of many death knells for Enola Holmes 2.
Clearly learning nothing from its first feature encounter with a character of some promise, Enola Holmes 2 has the room to grow its eponymous character away from the Sherlock Holmes caricature, with Henry Cavill reprising his role in what must be a dream career move for any actor, but one very few performers can articulate well. It is a damning state for the big-budget features of the past decade or two when Sherlock Holmes’ greatest portrayal was from an American. Beyond that poor quality is a very stock standard storyline of sexism that showcases just how grand a show Enola Holmes was and how much of a massive explosion Enola Holmes 2 will be. Instead of showing, it hints and contradicts and soon turns Sherlock into some red herring victim.
Even then the lack of extrapolation and the clear simplicity that comes from the meaning and messages of Victorian Britain and the fight for equal rights is too simple to work. Enola Holmes 2 does not build up a brilliant move for change but pushes back on those independent, smaller features that are doing much more and much quicker. Louis Partridge and Helena Bonham Carter appear and do about as much as can be expected for a feature that describes great adversaries as “nincompoops”. There will always be the case that Enola Holmes is presented as a child and there is lenience there that is featured in other nondescript, simpler mystery features aimed at a younger audience. The only issue is that the tone, like the first feature, is too high-strung and rattled to appeal to either side of the mystery-loving audience.
Once more coasting on detective work and iconography, at least Enola Holmes 2 has more of an interest in its mystery. Although its writing is tremendously wrought with trouble and its reliance on Cavill is staggering, it does struggle through with a competent mystery at its heart. Strong performances that shine through every so often are given the chance to display confidence or a quick turn of the hand that sets the stage for something new. A new find or revelation, all under the guise of empowerment, when in actual fact, director Harry Bradbeer is slowly learning that what makes these characters appealing is their history and lack of fourth wall breaks. He improves where it was desperately needed, the humour works a tad better and David Thewlis is always, always, a treat.
